


Take the A-Train

by Arya_Greenleaf



Series: Steggy Week 2016 [3]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steggy Week
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-11 18:21:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7065025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arya_Greenleaf/pseuds/Arya_Greenleaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peggy Carter is a woman with a plan. Big plans! She's on a path to graduating with an education she can make a difference with and has just landed a coveted internship with the Strategic Scientific Reserve's SHIELD division. Everything is going smoothly--she has a cramped apartment with her best friend, a fairly interesting social life, and just enough free time that she doesn't feel quite like she's going to fall asleep on her feet. That is, everything is going smoothly until the art student who is completely inexplicably working at the office, and popping up all over Peggy's regular haunts, threatens to derail her single-minded forward momentum with his utterly disarming charm. It might be less of a problem if he knew he was charming; then maybe Peggy wouldn't find herself so damn drawn to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take the A-Train

**Author's Note:**

> In response to Steggy Week's Day 3 theme: Modern Day.
> 
> Will include referenced past relationships and slightly under-aged drinking because America. Hey, look! Another WIP!

“So then when I’m done braiding your hair I’ll get the scissors and we can cut the end off to donate it and you can decide if you want the full buzz cut from there.”

“Mm. That sounds nice, Angie.”

“English!”

Peggy looked up from the textbook in her lap to the mirror in front of her, grimacing as Angie pulled particularly sharply on a length of hair she was working into a French braid down the back of Peggy’s neck.

“What?”

“You haven’t been listening to a word I said.”

Peggy frowned, “I’m sorry. I just—I have a test today and there’s just far too much information to remember. Ten chapters. Ten chapters! This professor is out to get me, I know it.”

“What class is this again?”

“Female felons in the premodern world.”

“They have a textbook for that?” Angie made a face and worked an elastic onto the end of Peggy’s braid. “That’s oddly specific.”

“No, not really. It’s several books, material from each one.”

“Is this the major or the minor?”

“The minor.”

“Ah, that explains the specificity.” She slipped a bobby pin in to keep a shorter stray lock in place and smacked her hands down on Peggy’s shoulders. “Alright, you’re done.”

Peggy grinned, “Thank you.” She got up from the vanity and set to shoving books into her backpack. “You’ve got tap and scene study today, right?”

“Mhm, I probably won’t be home for dinner.”

“That’s alright, I’ll be downtown.”

“Today’s the day?”

“Mhm. Starting at the SSR office.”

Angie wrapped Peggy in a tight hug. “You’ll be great.” She pushed her away to arm’s length and spun her around toward the bedroom door. “Now get a move on.” Peggy jumped at the playful smack across her rear end. “You’ll miss your train and be late for that exam.”

Peggy squinted into the bright mid-morning sun as she emerged from the subway at Columbus Circle and slid her sunnies down onto her nose. In spite of the massive exam she was set to take in just an hour’s time, it felt like the day was going to be good—great, in fact. Like everything was about to change in a major way.

That afternoon, Peggy made her way downtown, riding the A-train clear across to the other end of Manhattan to get her future started. She grinned as she made her way up the block to the perfectly unassuming building that housed the Strategic Scientific Reserve. Peggy had read somewhere that it had once been the headquarters for a telephone company that may or may not have also been a shadowy government office after the Second World War She could imagine the ladies at the switchboards, guarding secrets and connecting calls. After going through security, she checked in at the front desk with a coolly confident young woman who appeared about her age, bespectacled and brightly garbed.

“Hi,” she dug through her bag for her wallet to show her silence. “I’m Peggy—Margaret Carter. I’m starting at the internship with SHIELD today?”

The girl squinted at Peggy over the top of her glasses and then consulted a list on a clipboard she produced from a drawer somewhere behind the desk. “Who’s your supervisor?”

“Chief Dooley. Or Fury? I’ve gotten emails from both of them, I’m not entirely sure which I’m supposed to report to, I’m afraid, I haven’t gotten an answer.”

She plucked the silence from Peggy’s hand and ran it through a scanner. She tapped the webcam pointed toward Peggy mounted on top of her computer screen. “Look here, no smiling.” A temporary badge printed, Peggy’s photograph and information on it. The girl peeled the paper off of the sticker and held it out stuck to her index finger. “Stick this to your shirt, needs to be visible at all times. And you can pick up your silence here before you leave.”

Peggy took the badge and slapped it on her front pocket and adjusted her backpack on her shoulder.

“You can take the elevator there on the left to the fifth floor.” The girl stuck her hand out again, a smile on her face. “Pleasure to meet you, Peggy-Margaret Carter.”

Peggy laughed and shook the offered hand. “You too, um—“

“Rose, Rose Roberts.”

“You too, Rose-Rose Roberts.” The girl reached under the desktop and pressed a switch that let Peggy through the turn style and waved the next person forward.

Peggy’s heart pounded in her ears as she rode up in the elevator, her palms sweating. She could hardly wait to get started, all talk of interns simply being office “go-fors” gone from her head. There was a group of what Peggy assumed to be more interns milling around in the hallway.

She was the only woman.

Her stomach clenched in a mixture of pride and nerves.

“Alright, people!” A short man in a suit plowed through the group and beckoned for them to follow. “I’m Chief Dooley and _you_ are fresh meat. You’re gonna do what I say, when I say it, and you’re not gonna complain.” He opened a door and waved them inside. “Let’s go, move it.” He glared at Peggy for an extra beat and then followed the group into the busy office. “I’m your supervisor on paper and I’ll get final say on your assignments and whether or not you get a glowing recommendation for your schools. You’re answering directly to my associate—Nick Fury. He oversees all of SHIELD division’s operations so he’s overseeing all of you.”

Dooley gestured to a closed office, an imposing looking man with an eye-patch making what seemed to be a very serious phone call on the other side of the glass.

“Keep in mind that this is a government agency. That means any work you do here, while not always classified per-say, is not something to be discussing over drinks.” They continued to follow him through to a large conference room and took seats around the table. “Alright,” he counted them quickly and continued when he was satisfied that everyone was accounted for. “Let’s get this icebreaker introduction nonsense done so you can get your assignments and get oriented. You,” he pointed to the young man to his left. “Start. Name, school, what you wanna be when you grow up—you know the drill.”

“Jack Thompson. NYU. Wanna work for the CIA.” Dooley nodded in apparent approval. Peggy immediately started calculating just how far the stick was up Thompson’s ass and how brown his nose might get over the course of the semester.

“Daniel Sousa.” He sighed as if embarrassed to admit what he was about to say, “Also, NYU. Undecided.” Peggy wondered for a moment if Sousa and Thompson were associated in some way.

“Bucky—ah—James Barnes. Cornell.” He grinned in a luxuriant, easy way that no doubt made everyone he came across love him. “Mechanical Engineering—make of it what you will because I certainly haven’t figured it the hell out yet.” Dooley’s nose wrinkled in annoyance.

“And you?”

“Margaret Carter. John Jay.” She took a breath, hesitant at first to offer much more information. The _maleness_ of the personalities in the room was suddenly tipping toward overwhelming. “Criminal Justice Management… and Gender Studies.” She straightened her spine and gave a steely gaze toward Thompson, who was covering a snicker with a dramatic cough. “I’m keeping my career options open.”

Dooley cleared his throat and opened a manila envelope that had been sitting in front of him. He slid a stack of papers out and then shook out a few pens from the bottom. “Alright, now that that’s over with, you get so sign your lives away.” He slid the packets across the glossy tabletop toward each of them followed by the pens. “Read carefully, fill them out _completely_. When you’re done, we’ll head upstairs to security and get your badges and buccal swabs.”

Sousa’s eyebrows shot up, his pen hovering over the paper with uncertainty. “Buccal swabs?”

“Elimination database. Everyone that works here is required to give a sample. You got a problem with that?”

“No, sir.”

“Good, now hurry the hell up.”

The room fell into the quiet of scratching pens across paper for several minutes. Peggy read each rule carefully, initialing as she went, and filled out her personal information for what felt like the thousandth time since she’d applied for the internship. She reminded herself that the bureaucratic crap would be worth it one day, hell, the _pay_ would be worth it right there and then. She was one of the few people in her circle to find a paying position, as low as that rate was.

“Dooley.”

“Phillips, what brings you here?”

“Wanted to see the new faces.” The slightly over the hill man in his military uniform surveyed the group around the table. “I’m Colonel Phillips, I’m down in the main SSR office.” He narrowed his eyes, “Wipe that smug-ass look off’a your face, kid.” Thompson’s cheeks flushed with color as Phillips looked around again. He pointed at the boy with the attractive smile. “Barnes.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re responsible for that scrawny kid in my office.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m responsible for him, sir, but I do know him.”

Phillips let his gaze rest on Peggy for a moment, “Carter, yes?”

“Correct, sir.”

“I’ve heard good things, I know some of the people over at your school. Don’t disappoint me.”

“I won’t sir.”

Thompson was absolutely seething. Sousa looked like he’d just witnessed something beautiful. Barnes had his nose back in his paperwork.

“I’ll see y’all around. Don’t get into too much trouble.” Peggy watched through the conference room windows as Phillips crossed the wide bullpen-style space and let himself into Nick Fury’s office.

A few hours later saw Peggy back in the lobby, picking up her silence from Rose at the front desk. “So how was it Peggy-Margaret Carter?”

“Brilliant.”

Rose handed the card across the desk and Peggy brandished her new swipe card, still warm from being printed, on the end of her official lanyard.

“The shine’ll wear off, believe me.” Rose frowned at the boys as they came through the turnstile, matching faces with ID’s to return. “Looks like you’re the only girl in the bunch.”

Peggy shrugged. “It doesn’t look like there are any women in the office, _period_.”

“There a woman in the research department—Whitney Frost. That’s the only one I can think of off the top of my head, to be honest.”

“Well,” Peggy tucked her silence back into her wallet and pocketed it. “I’ll see you again tomorrow, Rose-Rose Roberts.”

The men manning the metal detectors nodded quietly as Peggy passed through. The sun was setting in a brilliant blaze of orange and red that the skyline broke into hundreds of shards. Peggy set her bag down on the railing of the scaffold that covered part of the building’s façade to find her sunglasses.

“Excuse me, Miss?”

A lanky young man wearing a pair of slacks that looked like someone had hemmed them just a hair too high and shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows looked at her expectantly. His casual posture leaned against the railing was totally ruined by the flush that swept into his cheeks and the tips of his ears.

“Yes?”

“You didn’t happen to see a guy in there? Ah, tall—dark hair—total jerk?”

“I—“

“Punk!” Peggy whirled around as James Barnes came loping down the stairs, wide smile plastered on his face. “I was standing in there like an idiot waitin’ for you.”

“And there he is.” The young man nodded and pushed off from the railing. “I texted you.”

Barnes’s phone chirped as he fished it from his pocked. “Well, I guess you did.” He swiped his thumb across the screen and walked over, skirting around Peggy and draping his arm heavily around the other young man’s shoulders. “That building is a goddamn black hole for cell service. Although, I guess that might be on purpose.”

The young man twisted around to smile over his shoulder at Peggy, a little wave of his fingers from under his arm.

“Now, I wanna hear everything about your first real day in Phillips’ office—because _whoo_ -boy mine was fuckin’ boring.”

Peggy shook her head, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “Hey!” Thompson brushed by, knocking into her shoulder as he went. He didn’t even acknowledge he’d done it, making a beeline for the subway stairs across the street.

“That guy’s an asshole. I can’t stand it when he does stuff like that.” Daniel winced and gripped the railing, shifting his crutches into one hand.

“Do you need help?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

“Are you taking the train?”

“Yeah, heading back to Queens. You?”

“Uptown.”

“Ooh, fancy.”

Peggy laughed. “It’s not fancy, believe me.” She walked with him across the street and paused at the stairs. “You and Jack Thompson.”

Daniel made a face. “Me and Jack Thompson.”

“Class… mates?”

“Sort of. We have like one class together and somehow our social circles kind of overlap.”

“Ah.”

“So, um—John Jay. That must be cool. Kinda the place to be for what you’re studyin’.”

Peggy smiled, “It is.” Awkward tension built between them. “Well, I should get going. A-train’s a few blocks up. Are you sure you’re okay? With the stairs?”

“Totally. See you tomorrow, Margaret.”

“It’s—it’s Peggy.”

He smiled and took one step down. “Peggy.”

She laid in bed that night in the cramped bedroom she shared with Angie, staring up at the dark ceiling. “Ugh, it was the most mind-numbingly boring day of my life—but… but I think it might be exactly where I’m meant to be.”

“I’m glad, English.”

“How was tap?”

“Finally nailed that combo.”

“We’ll have to celebrate.”

“I’ve got the evening shift at the diner tomorrow. We can see a movie after? Celebrate for both of us.”

“Excellent.” Peggy turned onto her side and settled down. “Goodnight, Ang.”

“Night, Peg.”

Peggy smiled into her pillow. It would be rough, that she was sure of. But it would be worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> Bucky's a goddamned nerd. He did well in school and was pretty obviously enjoying the expo for more than just the company in TFA. Mechanical Engineering kind of lends itself to a lot of applications and is a good foundation for a variety of professions. He's also a sniper and that takes a certain amount of mathmatical/physics type of understanding, even if you don't specifically think of it that way.
> 
> Not living up to it's rating yet, but there's more to come, kiddos.


End file.
